I keep alot of my rice,beans,wheat ect in my garage. I keep some canned stuff in there as well but my garage is insulated and has ac for summer heat reduction. heat in general degrades alot of foods I store my water in 55 gallon drums in my garage

I purchased (6) used, heavy duty storage shelves for $40 each from a shelving company in West Sacramento. These are industrial shelving units and are much sturdier than the ones that Costco, Lowes, etc. carry. I found them on CL.

I purchased some FIFO (first in,first out) storage boxes to rotate my canned food items. They were approx. $5 each, they make it easy to rotate through my stock and each box holds 15 - 16 cans.

My shelves are 24" deep so I purchased the "pantry organizer". To save on shipping, I purchased 5 packs of 4 organizers. I had to watch a youtube video a couple times to figure out how to assemble them. Once you get the hang of the assembly steps, it goes pretty quick. I took the additional step of reinforcing the boxes by wrapping packing tape around the boxes in a couple of places. I've used mine for over a year and they still work fine.

I do not know if different brands will have the same, similar or vastly different expiration dates.
So I do not know if Campbell's chicken noodle lasts longer than Campbell tomato soup or Kirkland soup

Just read the packages and rotate the stock

White rice stores longer and is more stable once open than brown rice
It also takes less energy to cook if you are using alternative cooking sources with a power outage.

Medications can also be rotated. If you have any required medications- diabetics - blood pressure- etc. get and extra script and rotate it as you refill

__________________

“Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson

— is it me, or should the NRA be fighting for firearm education & fighting bad gun laws, not fighting and emailing over coolers?

I have three months of food for my family that I bought from Costco. For protein, I have cases of canned tuna and chicken. For carbohydrates, I have canned fruit. For fat, I have canned nuts. For added comfort, I have cases of canned soup and chilli, and boxed Mac & Cheese. I avoid glass because it can break in an earthquake.

Most canned foods have a real shelf life of three to five years, though the "Use By" date may show less than that. If the can still has a vacuum, what's inside is most likely still good, though with canned meat, fish, and most vegetables toss them if you notice off smell, color, or if the inside of the can is discolored (enamel loss, or metal breakdown). You know if the can has a vacuum if the top is still slightly concave and has a solid sound rather than a ringing or hollow ding when tapped on the top.

Canned foods with higher pH, like fruits (tomatoes, peaches, pears, etc) usually swell when they lose vacuum, usually because they've developed pressure caused by hydrogen gas as they spoil. This can happen due to under cooking or because one of the seams has lost integrity (due to a dent or cut). When opened these cans will release pressure and usually, but not always, smell nasty.

Flexible packaging: Paper, paper/foil, paper/foil/plastic laminated packaging usually has a one year shelf life though things like catsup packets may last only a few months. Dry goods in those materials can last for years depending on what they are and which type of packaging is used, foil and metalized mylar laminates generally last the longest.

If you're storing dry products, keep them dry. Oxygen, heat, and sometimes light shorten storage life. Grains such as rice, corn, wheat, and popcorn can be stored for years if you can keep them sealed tightly and stored in a cool dry place.

Storing milled grains such as flour are often become infested with weevils. If you buy large quantities for storage, you should probably repackage into smaller sealed packages. A five pound bag of flour in a one gallon ziplock bag is better than storing several regular bags together on a shelf. Weevils in one bag will find the other paper bags and infest them as well.

One trick to eliminate oxygen is to drop a piece of dry ice into the container just before tightly sealing the container. Dry ice is carbon dioxide and replaces much of the oxygen which slows the breakdown process of most dry foods.

Dry foods with fat or shortening such as mixes are usually good for at least a year or two, your nose and eyes will be a help in determining whether they've gone bad or the fat is rancid.

As far as storage in a garage goes, it depends on the temperature and how the temperature changes. Some items, such as liquids or those packaged in liquid, should be kept from freezing. Hot Summers, or a series of hot-cold-hot-cold cycles will tend to be harder on stored foods than most California Winters. You might think about keeping your garage doors closed most of the time, unless Summer temperatures inside your closed garage worse than outside.

Most canned foods have a real shelf life of three to five years, though the "Use By" date may show less than that. If the can still has a vacuum, what's inside is most likely still good, though with canned meat, fish, and most vegetables toss them if you notice off smell, color, or if the inside of the can is discolored (enamel loss, or metal breakdown). You know if the can has a vacuum if the top is still slightly concave and has a solid sound rather than a ringing or hollow ding when tapped on the top.

Canned foods with higher pH, like fruits (tomatoes, peaches, pears, etc) usually swell when they lose vacuum, usually because they've developed pressure caused by hydrogen gas as they spoil. This can happen due to under cooking or because one of the seams has lost integrity (due to a dent or cut). When opened these cans will release pressure and usually, but not always, smell nasty.

Flexible packaging: Paper, paper/foil, paper/foil/plastic laminated packaging usually has a one year shelf life though things like catsup packets may last only a few months. Dry goods in those materials can last for years depending on what they are and which type of packaging is used, foil and metalized mylar laminates generally last the longest.

If you're storing dry products, keep them dry. Oxygen, heat, and sometimes light shorten storage life. Grains such as rice, corn, wheat, and popcorn can be stored for years if you can keep them sealed tightly and stored in a cool dry place.

Storing milled grains such as flour are often become infested with weevils. If you buy large quantities for storage, you should probably repackage into smaller sealed packages. A five pound bag of flour in a one gallon ziplock bag is better than storing several regular bags together on a shelf. Weevils in one bag will find the other paper bags and infest them as well.

One trick to eliminate oxygen is to drop a piece of dry ice into the container just before tightly sealing the container. Dry ice is carbon dioxide and replaces much of the oxygen which slows the breakdown process of most dry foods.

Dry foods with fat or shortening such as mixes are usually good for at least a year or two, your nose and eyes will be a help in determining whether they've gone bad or the fat is rancid.

As far as storage in a garage goes, it depends on the temperature and how the temperature changes. Some items, such as liquids or those packaged in liquid, should be kept from freezing. Hot Summers, or a series of hot-cold-hot-cold cycles will tend to be harder on stored foods than most California Winters. You might think about keeping your garage doors closed most of the time, unless Summer temperatures inside your closed garage worse than outside.

Eat 10 cans of soup- pull 10 in from the garage. Buy 10 more for the garage.

Keep a sharpie in the garage to date when you purchased the items

Yep, this is what we do. Buy food that we actually eat and rotate our stock.
Every can that goes in the pantry we find the date code and write the date in big black numbers on top of the can where it's obvious.

The other thing I do is enter everything into a spreadsheet. All foods that go in or out of the pantry get added or subtracted from the sheet.
Item description, can size or weight, expiration date, and pantry location all go in the spreadsheet.
That makes it easy to see what we have in stock, and also I can sort the items by the expiration date so it's easy to see which things need to be eaten soon and plan meals to consume them.

Looking at my pantry list I see I have a jar of tomato & basil marinara sauce and a jar of peanut butter that expire this month so I'll make it a point to make pasta soon or something to use up that sauce and maybe I'll make a batch peanut butter cookies.
And I'll add those items to my shopping list to get a few fresh jars for the pantry.